grief and trauma

I recently had two amazing experiences with a friend in my community. I used the Movie Technique both times to bring total resolution to extremely difficult memories.

I offered to teach her EFT because I knew she had witnessed the aftermath of a hanging that had happened about a year before.

I did not know the details at the time we began. She only told me that she felt a little responsible as he was a neighbor and she probably should have offered more friendship. She also told me that for months she could not walk by that spot – and even now she still had daily memories, heart poundings, and a hard time sleeping at night.

I began with the shortcut method, after asking her if she were to picture it in her mind what her level of distress would be. Clearly her level of intensity was 10 out of 10 at the beginning.

Even though this was the worst thing I ever saw…

Even though no one should have to see something like that…

We used these, and similar phrases taking note of her level of intensity on each round. After about four rounds, she was down to a 1 out of 10 and I explained the Movie Technique to her. I explained that at ANY point, should she feel distressed to let me know and we would do more EFT.

She closed her eyes and began to TELL THE STORY! I did not stop her because I did not want her to feel as if she were doing it wrong. I tapped along on myself on her behalf as she narrated. When she said, "and then I saw him hanging in the tree," I stopped her. How does it make you feel to say that? She replied that she felt all right and continued. When she said, "and then they cut him out of the tree and he fell to the ground," I again asked her if that brought up any emotional intensity. Again, nothing.

When she had finished telling me the story, I asked her if she felt responsible at all for what happened. And here was the shift. "No, I really don't. If I had tried to help him, he might have done it anyway. He was obviously very sad and depressed, and it is just sad that it happened." Or words to that effect. Only 15 minutes earlier, she had felt great regret, and now she did not. How wonderful!

I saw her a week later and asked her how she was doing with what I hoped was a former memory. She said, "Oh THAT! I forgot all about that." I stifled my desire to laugh out loud.

A few weeks later, I met with her again. As we sat down, I noticed she had been crying and asked her about it. She told me how depressed she was. She had begun counseling and she had been asked to journal her earliest memories. She had been writing about her mother's death at the tender age of 11 from complications of diabetes.

It was very traumatic as mother had been bedridden for some time. We jumped right in. We went through all of the details of before she was sick; the night she was taken away by ambulance; finding out from her father that her mother would not be coming home; and her sadness at growing up without her.

This was all done again with the Movie Technique. Again, she told the story and there was a little more to do. This time I explained just to run it in her mind quietly and stop if there was any emotional intensity. She went all the way through it and opened her eyes and said there was nothing left. There were moments when I had to voice for her as she was so emotionally intense that she could not speak and I just intuitively said what came to mind. These were good opportunities for EFT.

I spoke to her again recently about both of these experiences. On the first, she said she had not had any thoughts come to mind about it at all. And when I asked about her mother, she said that she could now deal with the memory just fine. It has been about five months since we worked together and she seems to have permanent relief. In her words, there have been no thoughts to trigger anything.

EFT is a very flexible improvement
tool that can be used for just about
everything. Although I try to remain
true to my training, I am using
my version of it here. I have had
extraordinary results and urge you
to contact me for more information.
I don't have medical or psychology
training, but offer EFT as a teacher
and coach.